Another visit with those wacky cats from the GWJ site had me chatting with them from a friend’s spare room over my vacationing-time.

A deconstruction of the GDC experience, as well as other weighty elements, round out the ‘cast. My personal favorite off-the-cuff discussion is the briefest debate between the awesomeness of Shodan and GLaDOS - so hard to choose between those murderous yet hilarious AI women.

This week Michael Zenke fills us in on his GDC experience. We talk about all the latest from the convention and get the inside scoop on why MMO developers seem to be on the verge of an all out cage match. We also have an awesome audio email!

Rabbit also jaws about a return to EQ, well worth a read.

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The last day of GDC saw me getting ambushed by a really nice microphone - I’m not really one to turn those kinds of things down. Gaming Steve is well known in some circles, and I had the chance to sit in on episode 71 of his show.

• Game Developers Conference Day 3 Recap
  • How on earth did one guy create an MMORPG with a player base of 1.8 million people?
  • The Chronicles of Spellborn is still alive and kicking.
  • What are Cryptic Studios and Jack Emmert up to?
  • What did game designers rant about this year?
  • Why do game developers dress so poorly?
  • What crazy game did Steve Meretzky design at this year’s Game Design Challenge?
  • WebWars: EVE sounds freaking awesome.
  • Why is Age of Conan – Hyborian Adventures going for an M-rating?
  • Why is GDC the place to be if you want to get into the game industry.
  • Finally, we get all goofy after three intense days.

I felt really bad running out on them, but I had to catch the BART before the Freemont line stopped running from downtown.

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A gent I’m pleased to consider a friend has done a wonderful thing, and I want to make sure you know about it. Brent has released his hundredth episode of the VirginWorlds podcast, and it is a glorious thing.

Clocking in at just under 3 hours in length, show 100 has finally arrived.  There are probably 30+ familiar voices on this show and you’ll find plenty of raw commentary and information as well as more laughs than any other episode of the VirginWorlds Podcast. Special thanks to ALL of the contributors to this special 100th episode.  It has been a great run and there WILL be 100 more podcasts from VirginWorlds!

The beginning, at the least, is worth listening to. Jonathan (of various VW podcasts) has a great skit put together at the start of the show … and it’s darn funny. Like, LOL funny. Check it out for sure.

Congratulations, Brent. Here’s to 100 more.

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I got to sit in on the first episode of a new VW show. That was kinda cool. Witty Ranter is going for a ‘Shut Up We’re Talking, with Swearing’ vibe. It was, as always, fun sitting with a bunch of fun guys and shooting the shit.

Here’s the description of the show:

In his inaugural debut to the VirginWorlds Collective, Adam gets Brenden from AnotherHere, Michael Edwards, a MMO game developer, Michael Zenke from Massively.com and Jonathan from The Online Gamer’s Anthology together for a discussion.  Topics include “Crafting in MMO’s:  It really need to die.  No, we mean it!”, and “Is there anything in 2008 for us to look forward to?”… Oh yeah, and true to form, we get a Zenke Rant…  Aww yeah.  This show does contain explicit language.  Viewer Discretion Advised. 

I gotta say, though, and I apologize to my fellow co-hosts for this: I’m not sure I really felt the topics this time around. While I personally don’t get into crafting, I don’t really understand the point of ‘it has to die’. What did crafting ever do to you? Then in the discussion of this year, there was a lot of cynical jadery flung around. I’m looking forward to WAR and Conan quite a bit - 2008 has a lot to offer.

I had a great time, and I don’t want to belittle the opinions of others at all. I just want to clarify: I’m not sure we said a whole lot in the hour we chatted. It’s still fun, just the same. Check it out. :)

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Michael Zenke of MMOGNation, 1UP, Massively.com and, of course, Slashdot.org (/.) who makes some of the best points of any podcast guest co-host I’ve ever heard, will finally get a microphone that has some level of hardware compression and will now be understandable when he gets excited about something instead of sounding like a buzzer that’s about to explode. The world will rejoice and at last there will be peace in the Middle East.

Ouch. :)

Your point is well seen, Mark. I need a new harddrive, and I think I’m going to go looking for a new headset when I pick it up.

Also. For serious, go check out his real predictions at the end of the post. They’re really, really good. Darren asked me in the last SUWT if I thought anyones were particularly bad or good: I think Marks are almost great.

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I am apologetic for my now-frequent wanderings into the podcasting genre, if they bug you. Just the same, I feel obliged to note that I’m in the most recent episode of Shut Up We’re Talking (episode 17). We mutter about the whole recent cheating discussion, as well as preview stuff for 2008. Plus there’s a Back to the Future quote at the start. Always awesome.

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I did another one of those increasingly-regular guest stints on a podcast last week; Brent invited me onto Virgin Worlds for a hootnany about the year in review/2008 look-ahead. Darren and Shawn (also of the VW collective) were also on-hand, and it ended up being some mighty cogent discussion.

Podcast 98, the final podcast of 2007 features Brent, Darren from Shut Up We’re Talking and Common Sense Gamer, Shawn from GuildCast, TabulaCast and OMG Real Life and Michael from MMOGNation. Join these familiar voices as they talk about the highs and lows of 2007, the game mechanics they want to see killed, the trends in MMO gaming and a listing of the MMO industry heroes of 2007. Have a happy new year!

My new PC also arrived today so I’m once again actually playing the games I’ve been talking about the past month and half. Good times.

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